While Fidelity Exploration & Production Co.’s 2012 exploration in Richland County, Mont. was initially focused on the Three Forks formation, drilling data shifted efforts to the upper Bakken shale, eventually making Fidelity the second Williston Basin operator to produce oil from actual shale with horizontal wells and hydraulic fracturing. The upper Bakken shale is the source of much of the oil in the tight sand reservoirs of the Bakken petroleum system.
Executives from Fidelity, a MDU Resources subsidiary with roots dating back to the late 1920s (Fidelity Oil Group), said the lower initial production rates from the shale were offset by lower decline rates when compared to Fidelity’s middle Bakken and Three Forks wells.
Under the leadership of President and Chief Executive Officer Kent Wells the company continues to work to crack the code in the upper Bakken zone where completion techniques perfected in the middle Bakken have not been as successful in the shale and where drillers have issues with wellbore stability that limit the length of horizontal legs.
Two of the upper Bakken wells drilled by Fidelity in 2012 are expected to be re-completed in 2013, and at least two more wells drilled, pending the expected second quarter completion of in-house studies designed to solve both issues.
The first upper Bakken well drilled by the company was the Edam 15-22H in southeastern Richland County, which it calls an “upper Bakken/False Bakken oil well,” because a portion of the bit path cut into the False Bakken. While most of the well’s lateral cut through the upper Bakken with a small portion of the path going through the Scallion member, the lateral finished in the False Bakken. The Scallion member is a thin limestone interval that separates the Lodgepole formation from the upper shale zone of the Bakken formation.
With an initial oil production rate of 22 barrels, the Edam 15-22H went online in July 2012 and through May 2013 had been on production for 208 days, yielding a total of 2,778 barrels of oil for an average daily production of 13.60 bpd.
The upper Bakken/False Bakken well has also produced 115 thousand cubic feet of natural gas for an average daily production of 0.55 mcf.
Shale activity continues
Fidelity continues to explore and develop the upper Bakken shale.
According to Montana Board of Oil and Gas Conservation records, as of May 2013 Fidelity had four upper Bakken wells in production, all in the Elm Coulee field in Richland County.
The wells went on production between September 2012 and April 2013. Average daily oil production from these four upper Bakken wells ranged from 20.67 to 121.46 bpd. Together they have produced 41,969 barrels of oil over 632 individual producing days for collective daily averages of 66.41 bpd.
Focusing on North Dakota
Despite its interest in the upper Bakken in Richland County, the E&P arm of MDU Resources is focusing the majority of its production efforts in North Dakota’s Bakken play this year, following promising well results in Stark and Mountrail counties in 2012. As of the end of June 2013, it had three rigs working in the two counties.
With net North Dakota oil production at 7,000-bpd at the end of December 2012, Fidelity was ranked as the No. 22 producer from the Bakken petroleum system by wells operated. In April, output had reached 7,400 bpd.
About half of the $400 million the company planned to spend in 2013 was slated for the Williston Basin, with the majority aimed at bringing prospects into production in North Dakota.
Testing lateral limit
Fidelity has also been testing the lateral limits of the Bakken petroleum system to the south in North Dakota’s Stark County, where the company has 40 Three Forks targets lined up for drilling.
In Mountrail County, Fidelity has another 40 wells planned in the middle Bakken.
